Twenty-two years after his passing, Duane
Allman remains the unsurpassed king of electric slide guitar.
Already steeped in the blues of Muddy, Wolf, Willie Dixon, B.B.
King, Clapton, and Beck, Duane became enamored with slide after
hearing the late Jesse Ed Davis perform Blind Willie McTell's
"Statesboro Blues" with Taj Mahal at an L.A. club. Using a glass
bottle for a slide, Duane also began emulating Little Walter,
Sonny Boy Williamson, and other blues harmonica players. In
time, even his non-slide playing took on characteristics of his
bottleneck style, as if both were becoming welded into one
voice.

Duane was
obviously a fast learner with an uncanny grasp of open-E
tuning, as heard on his records with the Allman Brothers Band
and soulful backing of Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, King
Curtis, John Hammond, Boz Scaggs, Clarence Carter, and others.
Though he began playing bottleneck in standard tuning, Allman
preferred the advantages of open E, and he eventually
limited his standard-tuned slide excursions to songs like
"Dreams" and "Mountain Jam."

Early in
1970 the Brothers cut a studio version of "Statesboro Blues" in
the key of C, while the later live At The Fillmore
version was in D. A few months later, during the
recording of Idlewild South, Allman tracked more
cutting-edge, open-E-tuned electric slide on "Don't Keep
Me Wonderin' " and "One More Ride." Continuing his session work,
he began to hit his stride later that year during Eric Clapton's
Layla sessions. His bottleneck ranged from subdued to
incendiary on eight of these tracks, almost all of which are in
open E ("Layla" and "I Am Yours" are the exceptions).
The Layla outtake "Mean Old World," a dobro duet with
E.C., is perhaps Duane's only recording in the more rural open-G
tuning. Duane's next big project, the Brothers' At Fillmore
East, represents the pinnacle of bottleneck performance,
the book of electric slide.

Gear-wise, Duane favored Les Pauls, 50-watt Marshalls, and a
glass Coricidin bottle worn over his ring finger. While sliding,
he used his right-hand thumb, index, and middle fingers, which
served double duty damping unwanted strings. Duane also used his
left-hand middle and index fingers to damp behind the bottle.
Low frets and medium-high action were also helpful. For accuracy
like Duane's, align the tip of your ring finger directly over
the fret.

Guitarists commonly use bends, hammer-ons, pull-offs, and finger
slides to get from one note to the next. The slide imposes
limitations on these techniques but offers several alternatives.
In Ex. 1a both notes are fretted with the slide with no audible
glissando in between. Ex. 1b features a picked grace-note slide
into the second note, a motion performed with a single pick
attack in Ex. 1c. Think blues harp for the even gliss in Ex. 1d.
The grace-note slide preceding the first note of each previous
example adds even more smoky harmonica flavor.

The
advantages of open-E tuning are increased string tension
(for more sustain) and economy of motion. Raising the open fifth
and fourth strings a whole-step and and the third string a
half-step produces an open E chord (Ex. 2a), giving you,
from low to high, the root, 5th, root, 3rd, 5th, and root. Since
the root positions are on the 6th and 1st strings remain
unaffected, it's not necessary to relearn notes when moving the
chord shape around the fingerboard. Using the slide to barre all
six strings, this chord voicing may be transposed to 11 other
fret positions to accommodate chord changes or playing in
different keys before recycling an octave higher (Ex. 2b). Open-E
tuning also offers easy access to all three triad inversions,
playable as chords or arpeggios. Ex. 2c demonstrates this while
summarizing Duane's right-hand technique. For arpeggios, begin
with the fingers resting on the strings as if you were about to
play the entire chord, and then pluck each note individually.

When it
came to spinning single-note lines (which comprised 99% of his
slide work), Duane preferred the urban "box" approach over more
traditional open-string stylings. The box shape is formed by the
addition of neighbor tones below the tonic chord position.
Examples 3a and 3b illustrate the lower neighbors (notated below
the downward arrow) a whole-step below each chord tone. These
lower neighbors (the lowered 7th, 4th, and 2nd/9th) are
incorporated in a typical Duane-style lick in Ex. 3c. Examples
4a and 4b show the chromatic half-step neighbors (the natural
7th, raised 4th/lowered 5th, and lowered 3rd), while Ex. 4c
adapts them to the previous lick. In Ex. 5 the same lick is
treated to a combination of whole-step and chromatic lower
neighbors.
Be sure to explore another important element of Duane's sound,
the world of sweet 'n' sour microtones present between neighbor
tones. Transpose these ideas over the entire fingerboard.
Remember, Duane played just as fluently in any key.

The next
few examples cover some of the building blocks of Duane's style.
Each motif stands on its own and may be developed in many ways,
including repetition, rhythmic displacement, elongation, and
retrograde. Ex. 6a features a four-note motif moving across
adjacent string groups with whole-step lower neighbors. Ex. 6b
shows what a difference a subtle change in phrasing can make.
Examples 7a through 7d follow the same logic using a five-note
motif. For some astonishing variations, try replacing the
whole-step lower neighbors marked by asterisks with chromatic
neighbors or in-between microtones.

Neighbors
above the tonic chord include the 2nd/9th, 6th, and 4th.
Duane used these sparingly, mostly as grace-note slides or for
an occasional splash of pentatonic-major color. Instead, he'd
extend the box by momentarily zipping up a major 3rd on the
first or fourth strings, or by using the important minor-third
spacing (only found between the 2nd and 3rd strings) to create a
dominant 7th chord fragment three frets above the tonic. In E,
sliding up three frets from the tonic's G♯and B yields B and D♮, part of the E7 chord (Ex. 8a). Ex. 8b shows the
whole-step and chromatic neighbor possibilities for both
two-note structures.

Culled
from medium-tempo shuffles, Examples 9a through 10b capture some
of Duane's signature phrases. All have been transposed to E
for mixin' and matchin'. Ex. 9a is very harmonica-like. Add even
more sass by exploiting those microtones. Ex. 9b uses the
implied 7th chord described above, and then outlines a
descending box combining whole- and half-step lower neighbors.
Ex. 9c's chromatically ascending minor thirds lead up to a
signature major third jump up the first string before the
descending box/octave-leap conclusion. A similar move in Ex. 10
navigates the IV-I change, as does Ex. 10b, a funky mid-register
harp lick.

Transposed to the key of D, the blues harp outing in Ex.
11 covers the last four measures of a 12-bar blues. Duane's
flawless intonation is evident as he zips off the fingerboard to
the hypothetical 26th fret. Move it up a whole step (to E)
for a real trip into the stratosphere.

When bottlenecking in standard tuning, Duane often wove
adventurous linear excursions up and down the string in place of
the blues-box approach, perhaps partially influenced by his
interest in jazz greats Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Duane's
melodic development is masterful in Ex. 12, taken from a
videotaped performance of "Dreams." His two-bar
call-and-response lines emphasize a 3/4 pulse, while the rhythm
section lays down a 6/8 jazz waltz. Special thanks to brother
Jas O. for supplying valuable reference material.